The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [608]
He crooked a finger at Amal Din and the two tall men left the room, Sir Louis striding ahead and the Afridi following a pace behind, hand on sword hilt. William heard their scabbards clash against the side of the narrow stairway to the roof and thought with a mixture of admiration, affection and despair: ‘He's magnificent. But we aren't in a position to refuse them, even if it does mean giving in to blackmail. Can't he see that? That fellow in Simla was right about him – he's going up there to do just the same sort of thing that French Guards officer did at Fontenoy… and the Light Brigade at Balaclava… “C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre!” It's suicide –’
Unlike the barracks, there was no parapet surrounding the flat roofs of the two Residency houses, though both were screened from the view of the maze of buildings directly behind them by a man-high wall. The other three sides had a rim of brick no more than a few inches high, and Sir Louis walked to the edge, where all below could see him, and held up a commanding hand for silence.
He did not attempt to make himself heard above the din but stood waiting, erect and scornful: a tall, black-bearded, imposing figure in the trappings of his official uniform, with the gilt spike on his helmet adding inches to his height. Medals glittered on his coat and the broad gilt stripe that adorned each trouser-leg shone bright in the early sunlight of that brilliant morning, but the cold eyes under the brim of the white pith helmet were hard and unwavering as they stared down contemptuously on the clamouring mob below.
The Envoy's appearance on the roof had been greeted with an ear-splitting yell that might well have made even the bravest man flinch and draw back, but for all the response it drew from Sir Louis it might have been a whisper. He stood there like a rock, waiting until it pleased the crowd to stop shouting, and as they gazed up at him, man after man fell silent, until at last he lowered that imperious hand – it had not even quivered – and demanded in stentorian tones what they had come for and what did they want with him?
Several hundred voices answered him, and once again he raised his hand and waited, and when they fell quiet, asked them to choose a spokesman: ‘You – you with the scarred cheek’ – his lean forefinger pointed unerringly at one of the ring-leaders – ‘stand forward and speak for your fellows. What is the meaning of this shameful gurrh-burrh, and why have you come battering at the doors of one who is the guest of your Amir and under His Highness's protection?’
‘The Amir – ppth!’ The man with the scar spat on the ground, and related how his regiment had been cheated at the pay parade, and that having failed to get any satisfaction from their own Government they had bethought them of Cavagnari-Sahib and come here seeking justice from him. They asked only that he would pay them the money that was their due. ‘For we know that your Raj is rich and so it will mean little to you. But we here have starved for too long. All we ask for is what we are owed. No more and no less. Give us justice, Sahib!’
Despite the looting and the rowdy, hooligan behaviour of the rebellious troops, it was plain from the speaker's tone that he and his fellows genuinely believed that the British Envoy had it in his power to right their wrongs and give them what their own authorities refused: their arrears of pay. But the expression on the strong, black-bearded face that looked down on them did not change, and the stern, carrying voice that spoke their own language with such admirable fluency remained inflexible:
‘I am grieved for you,’ said Sir Louis Cavagnari. ‘But what you ask is impossible. I cannot interfere between you and your ruler, or meddle in a matter